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Friday, July 22, 2011

Uprising in India

As one closely follows mass uprisings in Arab world, one gets great insight. We Indians hardly know about lives of people in Tunisia or Yemen or egypt (leave aside few songs shot near pyramids). What resulted in such an extreme step taken? How was it made possible for people to communicate and organize protest? Who led the people? Was there any financing involved to sponsor this? Role of web2.0 is also matter for research. It’s very intriguing indeed. But that’s beyond the point.

Will there be such situation in India? We should discount the current Anna Hazare episode as agitation more than revolution and also more of it was a media /social networking phenomenon. Can we imagine people coming on streets and protesting like Arab world? Though one can argue that such situation happens when people’s basic human rights are abused by dictators or financial situation leaves no hope situation for common man. On both count India seems to be doing ok. We have a so call democracy at least people are ‘made’ believed to be the one in control through means of well organized polls. Human rights of individuals are at least portrayed to be respected through sound legal system in place. Financially, apart from very high inflation, Indian economy is doing well. Inflation and corruption though can spark a discontent but as in past we have seen Govts toppled democratically (remember Delhi elections won on onion prices). Main reason is that inflation is a steady and gradual process. Due to market economy demand supply mechanism, it does balance out. On corruption, we Indians seem to take it in stride to be part and parcel of life. It’s our social psyche to assume things to work that way. We have also seen govt toppled (eg bofors) but hardly any cause for public outcry. It’s more a media phenomenon now days.

But there are primarily two things that can topple the cart. One is lack of Indian will to fight terror, and second is so called India-Bharat divide.

As we had seen in past, post 26/11 we had people marching streets of Mumbai saying enough is enough. There were series of blasts in 08 which led to 26/11. People were threatened that if they leave out of houses in morning, they were not guaranteed if they would return safe. (Remember a dialogue from Wednesday movie?) If Indian govt in future faces such challenge then people will again take up to streets. Govt seems to be in control or we are plainly lucky to have escaped with only two blasts (varanasi and pune) after 26/11. It must be latter as nothing has changed in system. Though once in awhile we see police alerts or some modernization of tools.

The second is India Bharat Divide: We have already seen this struggle resulting in thefts, kidnapping, dacoity, and rapes. The crass consumerism in cities has created craving amongst have-nots. They try to use these illegal ways to get there fast. We have seen unabated migration from villages to cities. The governance does not reach remote villages thus leading to new rulers like Naxalites to take over the power vacuum. In cities, welfare policies are as well non-existent and add to that perpetual greed of land mafia on resources. It will be hard one day to manage law and order in cities.

Having said that will people in india take to streets. Political parties have already shown that they can halt India to still using bandhs and violence . But to have 100% success, they need issue which will be acceptable to all. We are so divided that there cannot be a single cause that will bind us. Those who rule the IT and media tools are not interested in politics so social networking revolution does not mean in india. Only interest garnering topics will be out of bollywood or cricket.

So rulers in India, don’t worry about such uprisings, we Indians are very resilient.

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